Introduction to the English-Language Edition
Introduction
1. The Plague Era
From the Plague of the Philistines to Justinian's Plague
The Black Death
The Price of Growth
Decisions to Protect Health
Bad Air-or Planetary Misalignment?
Flagellants and Pogroms
The Danse Macabre and the Apocalypse
2. Modernity: New Concepts of the State and the Body
Economies of Scale
The Care of the Body
A Cure at Any Cost
The Decline of Mortality
From Helvetius to Vicq d'Azyr
Fresh Air and Clean Water
Vaccination and the Elites
Vaccination's Astonishing Success
A Short-lived Success?
3. Cholera: The Return of Epidemic Disease and the Abandonment of Traditional Protective Measures
Contagion or Infection?
The Cholera Epidemic as a Natural Experiment
Health through Isolation
Disease as Population Control
The Mobilization of Political and Technical Resources
Turning Away from Traditional Protective Measures
4. The English System: New Methods Gain Acceptance
The English Initiative
Cleanliness or Poverty?
The New Quarantine
The New Sanitary Frontier
Social Stigmatization and Health
The War on Syphilis
Blaming the Victims: New Mothers
5. The Sanitary Reform Movement: From Miasma Theory to Departments of Health
Sanitary Reformers
Maternity Wars: Should They Be Closed Down?
The Effects of Better Nurtition
City Health Departments, 1879-1900
The Importance of Municipal Policies
6. Vaccination: A Powerful Paradigm
Smallpox Vaccination: The Difficult Road to Acceptance
Bacteriology and New Vaccines
Pasteur's Laboratory Investigations
Tuberculosis: Feared, Resistant, and Romantic
The Twentieth Century: New Vaccines despite Theoretical Uncertainties
Objections to Vaccination
Organized Political Opposition
7. The Era of Spectacular Victories
Bacteriology's Successes: Sulfamides and Antibiotics
Victory over Tuberculosis
Industrialization and the Expansion of Demand
Government Programs
8. The End of a Dream?
Resistance and Emerging and Re-emerging Infections
The Thunderbolt: AIDS
What about the Rest of the World?
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index